Global Energy Center Insights & Impact

The Global Energy Center promotes energy security by working alongside government, industry, civil society, and public stakeholders to devise pragmatic solutions to the geopolitical, sustainability, and economic challenges of the changing global energy landscape.

Spotlight: 2020 Global Energy Forum in Abu Dhabi

Held Under the Patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Armed Forces.

The Atlantic Council Global Energy Forum in Abu Dhabi is the premier international gathering of government, industry, and thought leaders to set the global energy agenda for the year and anticipate and respond to the dramatic changes in the world of energy. Convened in partnership with the Ministry of Energy of the United Arab Emirates, ADNOC, and Mubadala, the forum is part of Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week.

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is projected to experience significant demographic growth by 2050, growth which will have to be met with commensurate economic expansion and job opportunities, or the region will risk an increase in political instability. To meet this challenge, countries in the region must diversify their economies beyond the energy sector and expand their energy sector beyond hydrocarbons. What are the key trends that MENA countries will have to contend with, what is already being done, and what further steps should be taken?

A widening gap between perceptions and reality of the global energy markets could increase volatility as governments, policy makers, and industries struggle to tackle climate change, according to Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency.

“There are some who believe that gas should play no role in the global energy mix,” Ambassador Richard Morningstar, founding chairman of the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center, said at the introduction of a panel on the future of gas at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Forum hosted in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates on January 12, 2020. At the other end of the spectrum, he added, some have “called gas a destination fuel that provides a clean baseload energy needed for the developed world to grow.”

Global Energy Center in the news

The conventional wisdom that the United States is the only viable partner for Gulf states is now being challenged by a new reality: the main importer of Gulf oil is now China. At the same time, China’s strategic goals increasingly encompass stability in the Middle East, while a more activist foreign policy under Xi Jinping ensures greater involvement in the security, as well as economic, discourse in the region.

The global COVID-19 pandemic has taken hundreds of thousands of lives and caused unprecedented harm to the global economy. At the same time, the pandemic has diverted global attention away from other matters of concern, notably the Floating Storage and Offloading Vessel (FSO) SAFER, a converted oil tanker moored four miles off the coast of Ras Isa, Yemen, in the Red Sea continuing to degrade after years of neglect. If no action is taken, the SAFER will spill as much as 1.14 million barrels of Marib Light crude into the water. Much of the world’s activity may be on hold, but the ongoing corrosion on the SAFER is not taking a break to wait out the pandemic.

Amid the haze of uncertainty wrought from coronavirus and oil market fallout, clean energy actors will not take a backseat as the world evolves. As the status quo dissolves before a global crisis, and fossil energy markets grow increasingly volatile, renewables and clean tech have an opportunity to chart a new path forward amid the recovery.

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